3 Arrested In Strip-mall Burglaries

Informant's Tip, Task Force Efforts Nab Suspects

December 03, 1996|By Tara Gruzen, Tribune Staff Writer.

Six months after the first of 73 strip malls in Lake and McHenry Counties was burglarized, the Repeat Offenders Strike Force of Lake County and police from a special investigative task force disclosed Monday they have arrested three suspects who may be linked to all the crimes.

Jay Culbertson, 28, of 4327 Centennial Ct., Gurnee, apparently was the leader of the three-man burglary team, said Waukegan Police Capt. William Biang, commander of the strike force.

The other two suspects were identified as Mark Didier, 21, of Trevor, Wis., and Shawn Lewey, 18, of 112 Bellevue Drive, Round Lake Park.

The three suspects have been charged with two break-ins in Mundelein on Nov. 16, Biang said, adding that indictments are pending in the other incidents. The men are being held in Lake County Jail in lieu of $150,000 bond for Culbertson and $50,000 bond each for Lewey and Didier.

The trio was arrested Friday night after a tip from an informant and subsequently confessed to all the burglaries, Biang said.

The first burglary was in Antioch on May 25, and the last was in Woodstock on Nov. 22. Police began to suspect the crimes all were linked because they followed a general pattern.

Almost all of the incidents happened on a Friday night or early on a Saturday morning, Biang said. The back doors of most of the businesses were pried open or the door was peeled off, and in all but a couple of cases, only cash was stolen, he added.

As many as nine businesses in a single strip mall were robbed on the same night. The burglars frequently broke through interior walls of adjoining stores or went out one exit and came in through another back door, Biang said.

Witnesses to some of the break-ins told police the offenders wore ski masks and gloves. They never assaulted anyone nor revealed a weapon, though sometimes they threatened to have one, Biang said.

The strike force involves police departments in Waukegan, Gurnee, North Chicago, Zion and Libertyville, as well as the Lake County Sheriff's Department and the Lake County state's attorney's office. The aim of the force is to pool resources to prevent offenders from dodging police by hopping municipal lines.

"We have people who wake up in Waukegan and go to Gurnee to steal a car, or vice versa," said Waukegan Police Chief Scott Burleson. "There is no way one municipality can handle it all."

In the case of the strip mall burglaries, the strike force worked with a special task force formed by the Mundelein Police Department.

Though the group had planned a three-prong approach--mobile surveillance, followed by stake-outs at malls and, finally, undercover work--officers tracked down the suspects after the first phase of the operation, said Mundelein Police Cmdr. Keith Kalodimos.

Biang said police began to follow Culbertson after an informant told the Round Lake Police Department that Culbertson was involved in the crimes.

On Friday night, Culbertson was seen with Lewey and Didier driving slowly in and around a strip mall in Buffalo Grove. The three took off, and were arrested 15 minutes later in Libertyville.

Police found a crow bar, ski masks and a pellet gun in their car, Biang said.

Culbertson was sentenced to three years in prison for burglary in 1990 and received a second seven-year sentence on a separate burglary charge in 1991, Biang said. He had been released on parole.